Contact the Commissioner

Contact the Commissioner

Adrian Benepe
Commissioner
New York City Department of Parks & Recreation

Adrian Benepe has worked for nearly 30 years protecting and enhancing New York City's natural and historic beauty. He has continued this effort as Commissioner of the Department of Parks & Recreation, appointed by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg on January 25, 2002. In this role he has focused on improving park facilities and programs for children, developing new waterfront parks and greenways, and making New York City bloom with millions of new flowers and hundred of gardens.

Benepe started his Parks & Recreation career in 1973 as a teenage seasonal helper in East River Park on Manhattan's Lower East Side, picking up litter and mopping locker rooms. After graduating from Middlebury College in Vermont, Benepe became a member of the first corps of Parks & Recreation's Urban Park Rangers in 1979. From 1979 to 1990, he served in a number of different capacities at Park & Recreation. Following his time as a Ranger stationed in Central Park, he took on a variety of positions ranging from Director of Natural Resources & Horticulture (overseeing scores of restoration projects in the City's wetlands and forests) to Director of Art & Antiquities (in charge of the City's conservation and interpretation of 1,300 statues and monuments and 20 historic house museums). During this latter assignment, he helped found the Historic House Trust, a not–for–profit organization created to preserve and promote the historic house museums located in New York City parks.

From 1990 to 1993 Benepe was the Director of the Annual Fund & Major Gifts for the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx, where he expanded his knowledge of plants, trees and children's education. At the Garden, he co–founded the "Holiday Garden Railway" exhibition. From 1993 to 1995, he served as Vice President for Issues & Public Affairs for the Municipal Art Society. In that role, Benepe managed public relations and developed strategies for public advocacy efforts in city planning, historic preservation, and public art, and he curated the "Kid City" exhibition to teach children about the built environment. After six years in the non–profit sector, he returned to Parks & Recreation in January 1996 as the Manhattan Borough Commissioner, managing Manhattan's green infrastructure of more than 300 parks, playgrounds, and malls. During his tenure he helped found the Fort Tryon Park Trust, a public–private partnership for the historic park and its Heather Garden. He served in that position until promoted to Commissioner of Parks & Recreation, where he now oversees the operation of about 29,000 acres and nearly 4,000 properties including almost 1,000 playgrounds, 600 ballfields, 550 tennis courts, 66 swimming pools, 48 recreation centers, 14 miles of beach, five major stadia, and 2.6 million street and park trees.

Parks & Recreation's operating budget is currently (October 2008) $340 million, and the capital budget for park expansion and reconstruction is over $2 billion in the current four–year budget plan. Thanks to the leadership of Mayor Bloomberg, First Deputy Mayor Patricia E. Harris and the rest of the City administration, as well as the participation of the City Council and other elected officials, the Department is currently managing the largest program of park expansion and renovation since the 1930s. A large part of the construction budget funds PlaNYC and MillionTreesNYC, Mayor Bloomberg's signature projects to green the city and develop a more sustainable future. Additionally, a steady rebuilding of the operating budget under Mayor Bloomberg has given the Department its largest workforce in decades, with over 10,000 employees at the height of the summer operating season.

With the prospect of budget shortfalls, Benepe and the Department will continue to work with and expand public–private partnerships, building on a remarkable network of over 400 civic organizations, 1,800 community groups and more than 56,000 individual volunteers, who donate collectively more than 1.7 million hours of volunteer labor every year to parks and gardens.

In addition to his B.A. in English Literature from Middlebury College, Adrian Benepe also earned a Master's Degree in Journalism from Columbia University, where he was awarded a Pulitzer Fellowship. In 1987, he participated in the Mayor's Top 40 Program, and in 1992 he was selected to participate in Leadership New York, a program of the Coro Foundation. Although born in New Rochelle, NY, he has lived in New York City since 1959. He lives with his wife and two sons on the Upper West Side of Manhattan where he grew up. He likes to run, walk, bicycle, and cross–country ski in Central and Riverside Parks and throughout the City's park system.